


green grows the asphodel

by LocketShoru



Category: Saint Seiya, 聖闘士星矢: 冥王神話 | Saint Seiya: The Lost Canvas
Genre: Albafica's POV, Canon Compliant, Canon Continuation, Enemies to Friends/Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Minos' POV, Not Athena Sympathetic, Oneshot, albafica is dead the entire time, depiction of minos' harp skills, i mean it probably didn't but you can't prove it, you can't say it never happened
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-29
Updated: 2020-04-29
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:02:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23905864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LocketShoru/pseuds/LocketShoru
Summary: Albafica died in battle, and Minos did too, sort of. So what happened after, to a Judge and a soul he's taken an interest in?
Relationships: Griffon Minos/Pisces Albafica
Comments: 10
Kudos: 27





	green grows the asphodel

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Shinren](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shinren/gifts).



> Y'all should know Anna by now, she's cute and she's canon and we love Minos' gremlin holy terror of a daughter.  
> The songs here are The Parting Glass and My Heart Will Go On, both of which I know from the Celtic Woman versions. This was inspired by something Shinren frantically dmed me about on twitter (@locketshoru for y'all who wonder), which became the very first MiAlba scene where Minos should be sticking a foot in his mouth, but he won't, because he's Like That. Basically this happened because Shinren pointed out that when Shion went to the Meikai, he should've seen Albafica and those else he cared about in Cocytus, but he didn't, so it stands that Alba wasn't there for other reasons, and we can instantly blame Minos for this one.  
> But I also fixed his character, because fuck him being actually that squicky. Nope. We're gonna fix it now. So here we are. :D

Albafica hadn’t been thorough - or perhaps, there was no way to be so completely thorough. He’d collapsed at the _Bloody Rose_ , yes, it had driven its way through his surplice, past his gambeson, and into his chest. But not as far as it would have needed. Alone had been too lenient before with his Spectres, and Pandora had argued that Dryad Luco’s ability to be comforting when they needed someone to be. They had pulled him out of the Hall of Resurrection and, after a few days to recuperate, allowed him to keep working.

Minos had slammed back a full mug of the cure for the Pisces poison before he’d even made it to Sanctuary, and had required the same of every other Spectre on that mission. Evidently, some of them hadn’t thought it worth their time, and honestly, he didn’t know what he expected from Terrestrial Stars just experienced enough to think they could slack a bit. Where Saints were concerned, they required full efforts, and nothing less. If someone made a mistake, they’d find it.

But anything the Saints could use against them, they could also use against the Saints. He felt the poison course through him, demanding his body’s supply of blood. And what the white rose took from him, the cure replaced, and when he pitched downward in a dead faint, it was little more than the stage of his life.

Of course, it wasn’t the final act. That would have been asinine. If he died here, it would be deeply inconvenient, and he needed Alone to… forget about that last incident, before he truly risked his life. The Pisces, he could handle. It wasn’t like he was going to get decapitated again with him: just poisoned, and Dryad Luco’s cure _worked_ , when actually taken. The Aries was a different story.

So he’d pitched forward in a dead faint, and waited, cosmos low and guarded. The Aries’ main priority would be Pisces Albafica, not checking to see if the Judge was actually dead. Albafica did a surprising amount of snapping at people, for someone who was bleeding to death. But perhaps those went hand-in-hand. A flicker between one heartbeat and the next, and there she was, a Spectre of trailing metal plates and a whey-farmer’s scythe, and a frankly alarming amount of corked glass vials.

She would be invisible to everyone but him: only those with particularly open eyes could see the psychopomps, and the Reaper Spectre would be no different. She spun her scythe around her wrist and swiped it through him, passing clean through a body that never felt its own death. And in her hand was a flame, gentle and blue like a will-o’-the-wisp, glittering with cosmos.

“Reaper,” he hissed, and she blinked in his direction, before smiling and sweeping a bow, the soul of Albafica in one hand and her scythe in the other. He kept his voice to telepathy, and even then he was quiet: the Aries was Lemurian, and he wasn’t taking chances on being overheard and thus, discovered. “Take him to Anna, make no stops. Tell her I’ll be home to handle it in about an hour. I’m keeping this one.”

“As you should have it, Sire.” She slipped her scythe through her belt, retrieving one of her corked bottles, and allowing Albafica to slip inside of it. She corked the bottle again, sliding it into its place against her hip for safe travel. And then she was gone, and the young girl that reminded him so much of Anna started to cry again, and the Aries picked up Albafica’s body - really, a stupid decision considering most of the blood it had was outside of it - and left.

They hadn’t even assigned a guard to his supposed corpse. And blessedly, for a moment, he was alone. A moment was all he needed. His cosmos flared like a lighthouse, and he was gone.

First things first: he ditched his surplice and jumped into a shower. He did call the remainder Spectres of his mission home, regardless of whether they’d be able to hear him from within Athena’s barrier. It would weaken soon enough, and give them a better way into Sanctuary. Spectres never travelled alone, and Athena would be just stupid enough to think they did.

When he was done scrubbing the blood out of his hair, he went to see Luco for another dose of his cure, just to make sure it actually was out of his system. He received a dose, a salve for his raw, chapped fingertips, and a lecture on being stupid enough to challenge a Pisces Saint in his own garden. Some things never changed: it didn’t matter what rank you had or how badly beat up you were or how long your mission took, the healers would always patch you up, and they’d take longer about it just so they could yell at you.

Some things were almost soothing, really. It was ridiculous that Rhadamanthys and Aiacos refused to consider his suggestion of slaughtering all of Athena’s healers. Just because they refused to consider psychological warfare didn’t mean that he’d forgotten about it. The blow to their morale alone would’ve been worth it. Albafica had, unfortunately, intercepted him.

He left the healer’s wing an hour or two later, salve wrapped around his hands and shoulder feeling better after nearly wrenching it out of its socket, and went to see his apprentice. 

Anna had taken the soul-flame from the Reaper and had allowed it to materialize properly. On the surface world, all souls could be were wisps of flame. In the Meikai, well. You didn’t need a body to do pretty much anything you planned on doing.

She met him at the entrance of Ptolomea, her servant’s garb disguising her properly and the veil hiding her face. He was the only one who knew what she looked like under it. She gave him a slight curtsy. “You didn’t tell me what to _do_ with him, so he’s on the couch and he’s out cold. He’s restrained, if that helps.”

“I needed him materialized, and I’ll handle the rest. You did well, Anna.” She followed him into his temple, keeping at his heels. He didn’t bother calling his surplice: he didn’t need it at the moment, and if Griffon preferred to get washed up on their own, he wouldn’t stop them. 

“How’d the mission go?” she asked, stopping at the doorway to his central living quarters. She was allowed in here - really, she was one of the few people he _did_ allow this deep into Ptolomea - but she seemed interested in interrogating him first.

He smiled. “Badly, and the world should thank Luco for his efforts in undermining the Pope. Spite goes quite a long way, my darling girl.” He clapped his hands, stepping across the threshold. “Now! Let’s see what we have. I will need a few moments alone, Anna, if you might be able to check up on Griffon.”

Really, he was nicer to her than he was to his own Spectres. She bobbed a quick curtsy again and ran off to fulfill his request, though she knew as well as he did it was to get her out from underfoot than because he actually needed her to check up on Griffon. He took a breath, and made his way toward the couch, up against one wall, across from a window.

Upon it was a ghostly figure, his chest rising and falling with his breath, but tied in cosmic threads so tightly that the most motion he would have been able to manage might be inclining his head. Anna’s work had considerably improved in the past few weeks. He wore only gambeson, the strange one-piece suit that Sanctuary required of its warriors. Minos tsked. That couldn’t possibly be comfortable to wear, let alone fight in. That would have to change, and they were very nearly the same height and build: his clothes would fit him just fine.

He twitched the threads holding him, releasing him from their grip. Albafica slept on. He would be disoriented for a while, and would likely sleep through it until his soul got over the shock of no longer being attached to a body. Minos knelt to him, slipping an arm under his thighs and shoulder blades, rising to carry him out of the living room. Couches weren’t great to sleep on, especially not for the few days he would probably be out.

He carried him out of the living room and into his own chambers, intending to keep a close eye on him until he woke. Then it would be time for introductions, and explanations, and so very much else. He had his reasons, and until Albafica was ready to ask the questions he needed to, he was going to keep them quiet. 

He set him down on one side of his bed, closest to the chair and wardrobe, pulling back the curtains around it. Albafica remained mostly motionless, his chest still rising and falling. It was a little strange, that the living thought the dead didn’t breathe. They did, when they wanted to. Anything else would be odd.

He opened his wardrobe and rifled through it, hunting for a specific robe he hadn’t worn in… Lifetimes, in all likelihood. He’d stopped wearing such things casually, but he still had some of his old chitons that would fit him well, at least, if they hadn’t disappeared within his closet to never reappear again. Sure enough, they were there, and he pulled the fabric out of the very back of the wardrobe, snatching a pair of golden sandals from the shoe-rack below.

Dressing an unconscious soul turned out to be surprisingly difficult: it required puzzling his way through undressing him first, and eventually he gave up and tied Albafica’s hair up with a clip to keep it out of his way while he worked. He was less impressed with how much he was somehow still covered in blood, and resigned himself to allowing Anna to bring him a bucket of water and a few rags to at least attempt to clean him off.

The blood probably wasn’t poisonous, ‘probably’ being the key word. Albafica was an incredibly handsome man, not that he’d been focusing on it very much. It was one thing, to make sharp jabs and insults and throw him off-balance in the middle of battle. Another thing entirely, to turn empty words into actual thoughts. He sighed, rubbing the rag against his calf, scrubbing off blood that seemed very determined to stick to hair and refuse to let go.

At least death had healed his injures. He _really_ didn’t want to explain this one to Luco until he had a solid alibi. Luck was on his side, that Albafica wouldn’t need medical treatment until Minos could argue Alone into setting the Pisces Surplice free. 

Not much longer later, he had Albafica dressed and cleaned up, if still unconscious, and set him on his back to sleep off the rest of the shock to his system. Anna came back later with tea and food, which they ate together in his bedroom before he sent her off to go run errands for him.

Now, it was just a matter of waiting to see if he was right.

He awoke to the feeling of warmth and something soft around him, and a quiet feeling of something being wrong. The pillow under his head was softer than anything he remembered having in the Pisces Temple, and the blankets had to be worn fleece. Something tight but not straining gripped his calves, and his eyes blinked open. Above him looked to be the fabric ceiling of a four-poster bed, dark greys and deep, expensive violets. After a moment, he could discern the sound of a harp, the melody soft and soothing. The pillow underneath his head was worn velvet, likely stuffed with feathers. He was about to sit up, figure out why his gut wouldn’t settle properly, and then he heard the voice: masculine, tenor, singing softly a song that made his chest cinch tight with memory.

“ _And all I've done for want of wit; to mem'ry now I can't recall. So fill to me the parting glass, good night and joy be to you all…_ ” The singer was skilled with his harp, and he knew every note before it was played. The voice was off. In-tune and melodic, but not deep enough, not wrapped in the ghost of Ireland as it needed to be. 

“ _But since it fell unto my lot, that I should rise and you should not… I gently rise and softly call: good night and joy be to you all._ ” It was almost so soothing he could simply go back to sleep, but he didn’t know where he was, even if he was definitely in a bed and definitely had clothes on, which was about his standard for waking up in unfamiliar places. The song ended on the soft strumming of the harp, and he forced himself to sit up.

The room was richly decorated, warm and full of… mostly books, and a few elaborately-dressed marionnettes, the kind on strings. In the room’s single chair at a desk, accompanied by a harp, was a white-haired man whose very existence made him freeze.

Griffon Minos raised a hand in greeting, his chin resting on his other hand. He wasn’t wearing a surplice - no, he was in a simple, lavender shirt buttoned only halfway up his chest and dark trousers, with a crown of silver laurels tucked above his ears. He lifted his chin off of his hand and spoke, in that recognizably tenor voice:

“You’ve woken without your prince, Sleeping Beauty. How disappointing.” His tone was mild, more of a comment on the situation than with any judgment in his voice. Albafica narrowed his eyes, shifted onto one hip to turn away from him, and dropped back into bed.

“If you kiss me, I get to hurt you,” he answered, focusing his stare on the wall of bookshelves. He couldn’t make out any titles from across the room, but it was a frankly impressive amount of books, all leatherbound with gilded foil and seemingly organized. 

“You would find that difficult, and I haven’t done any such thing,” Minos answered. His tone was now more imperious, almost… offended? He wasn’t good at telling emotions through voices, or any other social cues. For all he knew, turning his back to him was a sign of trust and not of refusal to put up with him.

“I have roses, and I _will_ use them on you,” he muttered. “Where the hell even are we?” Minos chuckled behind him, a scoff of entertainment that he didn’t quite think was actually laughing at him, but was expressing amusement nonetheless.

“You could try, but I doubt your roses can bloom here. As for where we are, this is only Ptolomea. I’m sure you’ll remember why you’re here soon enough.” Minos plucked a few strings from his harp, sending the chords through the room. He had been a surprisingly good singer, though Albafica felt - somewhat unfairly, he supposed - it was rude for him to have chosen Lugonis’ favourite lullaby. He needed to time waking up better, to when he wasn’t playing a song that still hurt, years later. 

He sat up again, back still to the Judge, and called a rose through his cosmos to his hand. It didn’t come. He couldn’t even feel his cosmos, now that he thought about it. And then… He remembered both bouts of their duel. The first, he’d lost, and it was only thanks to the resigned, quiet determination of the Pisces Cloth that he’d been able to stand back up and complete his duty. The second, he’d won, or at least, until right now, he thought he had. But Minos looked fine, and there didn’t appear to be a scar. At least that he could see through his barely-buttoned shirt. He kind of had a nice chest, not that it didn’t infuriate him to even think of that. But… He’d collapsed after that second bout, after he was sure he’d killed the Spectre now in the same room as him. He didn’t even remember hitting the ground, though he was sure he’d passed out. The answer came to his lips, and he didn’t even register it properly before he was asking.

“I’m dead, aren’t I?”

“Of course you are. I arranged for one of our psychopomps to bring you here, and I have ensured your relative safety within Ptolomea.” Minos’ voice was still calm, without a hint of any surprise. Albafica turned around to face him, fingers finding the hem of… whatever he was wearing, plucking at it nervously. At a glance, he appeared to be wearing a chiton, which meant that the tightness around his calves was likely sandals.

He glanced down, to find his guess indeed correct - golden sandals and two dark-coloured blankets, thick and warm even though the room wasn’t cold. He looked up again, raising an eyebrow. “You put me in shoes and then into a bed?” he asked, in lieu of anything else that might actually be helpful. He’d blame it on the shock.

Minos shrugged. “To be honest, I expected you to be on your feet trying to escape right now, and saw fit to allow you proper footwear for that possibility.” He paused, and then sighed, reaching up with a hand to rub the back of his neck. He looked like he was thinking something through, but Albafica couldn’t say for sure. He’d never learned social cues well, and certainly hadn’t been taught by Lugonis. Manigoldo’s constant laughter at his awkwardness had always stung, a little.

“Where would I go? I can’t exactly make myself stop being dead, and I don’t expect a rescue,” he answered. “Aren’t you going to… judge my soul, or whatever the lot of you Spectres actually do with souls?”

“No soul gets into Ptolomea, no matter what they did or who they are.” Minos rose, dusting off his thighs, lifting the harp effortlessly to place it near a small table on the other side of the room - a table which, at second glance, was covered in various sheets of music and a fiddle. “You’re here because I want you to be. I expected you to be out for longer, but alas. If you’d indulge me, I would recommend not running off. It’s ever so much easier to talk someone important into a resurrection if they’re not angry with me.”

Quietly, he wondered what Minos’ position and rank actually _was_ , if he didn’t count himself in the category of ‘someone important’. But he had better questions. He rose from the bed, finding the sandals relatively stable. “Why would you resurrect me? I’m not a toy, regardless of what you seem to think of me. I won’t be obedient to anything you say.”

Minos’ sigh was rather audible, even with his back to him. “Please, Pisces Saint. Be charitable. Save the empty threats for the battlefield. There is no point in lying to you right now, and I rarely put in the effort for things that aren’t worth my energy.”

He paused, puzzling through that sentence. What did he mean by lying? And he hadn’t threatened him, only told him what was fact. Minos turned around again, a dark cloak in his arms, black and seemingly made of smoke the farther from the golden clasp the fabric was. He offered it, and Albafica took it.

“You mean you were just saying whatever you thought would piss me off the most,” he said finally, after a moment’s consideration longer. Minos nodded, giving him the barest of a smile.

“An enemy who’s too angry to be witty is an enemy that’s thrown off his guard, and prone to making mistakes. It’s a matter of distraction,” he confirmed. “Say what you please, say whatever gets their attention away from your hands. Say what you might never say otherwise, what you might find repulsive yourself. If you are never truthful in battle, then your enemy will never see your spirit.”

Minos paused to scoff, and Albafica wasn’t sure if it was actually directed at him, as the Spectre proceeded to make a quick, complicated gesture with his gloved hands by his collarbone. One moment he was solid, the next, he seemed barely more than a ghost. “Not that it helped me much,” he added almost ruefully, and met his eyes.

Minos’ eyes, which he’d previously only identified as ‘pale’, were the exact shade of lavender of the chiton he was wearing. He had a patch of experimental roses that exact colour in his garden, having carefully crossbred them with morning glory and hemlock. He stopped, staring back with a glower. He’d learned that one early: when he was confused, or upset, or really anything, settle for a glower and a pissed-off air. It kept people away from him, kept them safe, if insulted. 

He took a deep breath. “Why did you bother with all of this, then? If you’re not planning to do your…” He made a gesture with his fingers, miming the technique Minos had been using in the battle, unsure how best to translate. “Doll-control-thing.”

Minos’ mouth twitched, like he was holding back a smile. “My Cosmic Marionation? It doesn’t work on dead souls, it doesn’t need to. If I wanted to control you that way, I would use the powers gifted to me as a Judge, because we are in the Meikai.”

He folded his arms, standing his ground, shifting the cloak to under his arm. “You didn’t answer my question.”

Minos dipped his head. “Then put on your cloak and follow me, and I can show you. You needn’t draw the hood unless I tell you to. Do not expect answers to every question, Pisces Saint, there is much to establish first. But I will answer most of them.” He scanned Albafica’s form, giving him a familiar and unwanted once-over. He shied away, stepping back and deepening his glower. Minos raised an eyebrow.

“I’m not interested in making it awkward. I’m making sure I actually did get all of the blood off of you,” he said, responding to Albafica’s unspoken complaint. “I would be justified in ensuring you don’t bleed all over my bedsheets. Forget everything I have ever said to you outside of this room. It doesn’t matter. You cannot do more than mildly inconvenience me here, I have no further need to lie to you.”

He stopped. There were quite a few sentences that were coming to mind, most of which started with insults only Manigoldo usually got away with saying. Nobody was stupid enough to arm Scorpio Kardia with the word ‘fuck’ and its definition. But it also wasn’t that smart to be rude to a man who currently had so much power over him. “Why do I need the cloak?” was what he settled on. It didn’t seem entirely solid, except for the part around the shoulders, near the clasp.

Minos beckoned him forward, turning his back and leaving the room. Albafica sighed, and followed him down the hall. “You need the cloak because it marks you as ‘supposed to be here’ over someone who escaped their prison. It won’t actually have any effect on you, you’re already dead.”

He debated for a moment, but pulled it around his shoulders. The edges of the smoky fabric brushed against his exposed knees, and he fastened the clasp, noting where the edges of the hood were. “So it would kill a living person?”

“Not at all, they wouldn’t be worth the effort of making if that was their purpose. They’re usually for our trainees, before they learn how to disappear properly. Draw up the hood and it will turn you invisible. In your case, it will provide protection against the Meikai’s natural hazards, and will mark you as a soul of special circumstance.” Minos lead the way down the hall, his form somewhat ghostly. Albafica could see straight through him, if he tried. The hall itself was dark marble, lit by torches of some bright, blue-green fire. He was pretty sure the carpet was violet: expensive, that would be.

“Right,” he muttered. “You still haven’t told me why you brought me here.” Out of the corner of his eye, he could see a flicker of movement- the hem of a skirt or cloak, if he wasn’t wrong. He guessed a servant - he didn’t quite think Minos was the type to cook his own food, if Spectres even ate in the first place, either. He doubted he, either, would need to eat now.

Minos stopped at another doorway at the end of the hall, and turned back toward him. “I would call it sentimentality, if it weren’t an insult to your memory,” he answered. His eyes glittered with some emotion - which could have been anything at all. “You beat me. You played by our rules, played the Spectre’s game, and you did it better than I did. If I’m not mistaken, you have quite sharp teeth, when you want to. Is it a crime, then, to want that kind of strength returned to the chessboard, draped in the banner of death? You would slaughter them all and laugh, and I respect that.”

Albafica stared at him. There was no other reaction he could have, but stare. He hadn’t even been trying to play their game. He had been fighting, luring them into his garden so he could stop them. No matter how he fought, no matter where he went, no matter what he did. People would stare, and ignore his actions in favour of how it looked. He’d had a choice, no matter how distant it was or how unconscious it had been to make it. He could either try to always be what they wanted of him while still doing his job, or he could shun them all. He barely ever had to deal with them outside of a mission, and he’d chosen: their opinion of him didn’t matter. People would say as they would, and he would do his job, ignoring them all. It wasn’t like he could get close enough to change their minds.

But this… Minos was looking at him like a warrior. He hadn’t been giving him a once-over as much as sizing him up for combat. True, he was looking at him like a Spectre, but that was only fair. Saints weren’t the good men here, in the Meikai. He was the enemy here, and to the ones who lived and ruled here, all that mattered was strength. Strength to defend or to slaughter, it wasn’t different to them. 

“I’m not a monster,” he said, quietly, and his voice came out firm, determined. “I don’t kill Spectres because it’s funny. I kill Spectres because the lot of you keep killing people I care about.” He took a breath and continued. “I get that killing Spectres makes me the enemy to you, because I guess on some level you actually care about them, even though you throw them away to let me kill them when you know as well as I do they don’t stand a chance. But I wouldn’t do it if you didn’t come after us.”

Minos started laughing, abruptly and somehow, without a hint of mockery. He sounded like Dégel, almost. “And yet you fight for a warmongering goddess who had your father killed because she felt like it. I wasn’t a Spectre in my own right at the time, but I saw his trial.” He dropped his voice from speaking volume to something quieter, more serious. “She didn’t have to make the Pisces Saints poisonous, but she did, and he thought she was right to do it to him. Everything he did was for her, and she threw him aside like so much refuse, like she just did to you. I won’t argue we don’t maraud and slaughter. At least we’re honest that’s what we’re going to do. She gets you to go make war for her against everyone else, and best of all, she makes you think it’s the right thing to do.”

He was speaking slower now, more serious, placing emphasis on every few words. Lugonis had done that, when he was trying to get him to understand something critical in his lessons. This wasn’t mockery, or arguing, or anything of the sort. He couldn’t see any other way it could be, because Minos was trying to show him the other side of the conflict. Minos pushed the doors of the hallway open, and stepped out into the moonlight.

He followed him, unsure how there was moonlight in the Underworld, but he stepped out onto a balcony, high above what seemed to be most of the Underworld. He took two more steps forward, placing his hands on the railing, and looked out.

The first thing he noticed was how it was all structured, where the main roads were, where the habitation was, all the way to the outer edge where he could see a thin ribbon of black, which he guessed would have to be the River Styx. The main roads were bleak, the prisons surrounding them equally so. If one was walking that road, all they would see was sorrow and destruction. But away from the roads, on the other side of the prisons…

It was like looking at a giant maple leaf, almost. The stem trailed through from the Styx to the snowy, mountain-like structure they seemed to be on now. But away from the stem, away from the ‘veins’ of prisons and side paths…

“Is that a _forest_?” he asked. He couldn’t see anything below the treeline, if he wasn’t wrong. Poplars and asphodel and giant fungi, and so many things he didn’t know the name for. Halfway between Ptolomea and the Styx was what looked like a city. Around the main roads, it was rubble. Away from it, out of sight from it, was what looked like a prosperous town, where people lived their lives.

If he didn’t already know he was in the land of the dead, he would never have been able to guess from the view. It looked like a land a particularly vicious army had walked through to get to their actual battle. Without that flaw, it could have been completely normal.

“Now you understand, a little.” He turned and Minos was leaned up against the railing, arms folded and his eyes on the horizon. In his completely normal, freeman’s clothing and the laurels, he could have been a noble, watching his lands for trouble. He had watched this man slaughter several Saints, laughing while he did it, and yet, he had to have been two different people, to align with what he was seeing now. “Athena did this to us, if you were wondering. She carved her way through and with every Holy War, reinforces it. It looks better than it did when I was a child, if you can believe that. We keep trying to regrow things, no matter how useless of an effort it is.”

The resignation in his voice caught him off-guard, and he answered without thinking. “Because it’s the right thing to do.” He stopped, and blinked, unsure that his voice had been the one saying it. He thought, for a moment, and Minos seemed to let him, half an eye on him at any given time. He knew Saints who weren’t interested in protecting anything, and only signed on for battle. Some of them got better about it. A lot of them didn’t, and only spoke of glory, of cutting down Spectres like wheat. And yet, they still got to be Saints. They did all the right things, for all the wrong reasons. It wasn’t that far of a stretch to think of doing all the wrong things, for all the right reasons.

He took a deep breath. “I’m not saying I believe you about Athena,” he began. “I mean… I never understood how she could be so gentle and still be named the goddess of war. And I’m not saying I think the Spectre way is right, because I’ve seen far too much of what the lot of you do to think better than I’ve seen. But I think I can see that it isn’t entirely condemnable.”

“You really think so?” He glanced over and Minos was looking at him now, eyes bright and glittering with an emotion that he still couldn’t name. He nodded, and Minos offered a gentle, almost sweet smile. It was so unlike the smirks and manic laughter of the battlefield. How the man could be both, he didn’t know. He returned it, awkward but still a smile, and looked back to the view. It was startlingly pretty, out on the horizon.

“I always thought the Underworld would be… a giant cave, or something. But caves don’t have moons.” 

Minos glanced up at the sky. “This is a cave, and the moon you see isn’t an actual moon. It’s an illusion, meant to reflect the sky atop of Knossos. I set it up many, many lifetimes ago. That is why there are so many stars that you have never seen before. You can’t see these stars anymore, not from the ground.”

It made sense - he didn’t believe Minos was the same man as the King of Crete so long ago, but names were like that. Even if he wasn’t, he probably held the legacy, still. Albafica paused, and debated, before a question rose to his lips. “You have wings,” he commented. “At least on your surplice, and I assume you use them to fly. Can you see all of these stars from the sky, when you’re flying?”

Minos eyed him, something like a smirk playing on his lips. “Even more than that, and there are things in the sky you can’t see from down here. I could show you, if you’d so like.” He held out a hand, and Albafica all but recoiled, stepping another pace away from him. His smile faded, and he pulled his hand back. 

“You would be dead in moments, if you touched me,” he said, and he knew his voice was far more tinged with panic than he wanted. The fact that Minos had been - and still was, regardless of what rules he seemed to be breaking to allow Albafica this far - an enemy that he had died trying to kill was irrelevant. He had killed the man closest to him that way. He wasn’t going to do it again, not ever, if he could help it.

Minos blinked, and rested his elbow on the railing, and dipped his head in what he hoped was understanding. “I would not, but I understand your concern,” he answered, and his voice was… gentle, almost. “Three things, and may you breathe easier here. Firstly, you are dead. You are no longer poisonous. Two, I am a Spectre, which means even if you kill me, my Lord Hades will resurrect me. I will never fall, never truly die, until he chooses to allow me to do so. Even if you could kill me, it would be no more than a temporary inconvenience to me. And three, you never needed to worry about that unless you had an open wound. It is only in your blood, not anywhere else. You could always have gotten close to others, so long as you weren’t bleeding on them.”

It was like someone had kicked the ground out from under him. He stared at him in disbelief. “How would you… _how_?” he asked, his voice barely a squeak, almost incoherent. 

Minos’ smile, gentle and seemingly understanding, returned. “You are not the first Pisces Saint that we have encountered, nor are you the first we’ve rescued from Athena.” He held out his hand again, barely within arm’s reach, but not reaching entirely for him. As if offering him the opportunity. “You cannot kill me at all within the Underworld. Breathe, Pisces Saint, and trust me.”

“Do you see me as a warrior?” he asked. The question was startling enough that Minos blinked. If he focused on literally anything else, he could keep his composure. But he needed to be _sure_ , before he dealt with this.

“Of course- if you weren’t, and if you weren’t so skilled a fighter, you wouldn’t be here,” he answered, his tone mostly confused, if nothing else. He held still, his hand still extended, and Albafica pulled his hands to his chest, trying to breathe, trying to do anything to stabilize himself. He tried to breathe to a count of five, of ten, of twenty, and he kept counting until his feet seemed to find the ground again. Until he stopped feeling his heart beat in his throat, and he could breathe. He looked up at the Spectre in front of him, smile soft and eyes glittering with an emotion he never once knew how to recognize. He took a breath, shifted his weight onto the leg away from him, and eyed his gloved hand. Then he took another breather, deeper this time, and slowly placed his hand on Minos’ palm.

It was surprisingly warm, and his glove seemed to be made of a thin leather. Minos’ fingers gently curled around his thumb, and he thought about pulling away, and decided instead to simply force himself to breathe. Breathing seemed the more difficult challenge, and he forced himself to do it. He felt Minos pressed one fingertip into the flesh of his hand. His head snapped up to see what he was doing. Minos held up his other hand, maintaining eye contact, and slowly placed his free hand atop of Albafica’s, enveloping his hand in warmth. It was a slow, telegraphed motion.

He realized not a split second later that the Spectre was doing his best not to scare him. He swallowed, forcing air down, scanning his face for any signs of poisoning. Anything that might say he was getting hurt. But he wasn’t. He took another deep breath, steadying himself, and stepped a half pace closer. Minos’ smile deepened, his hands holding onto his, allowing him to take his time moving until they stood about a foot apart, just close enough for Albafica’s elbow to rest at his side.

Minos removed his hand from atop Albafica’s, and held his arm out to the side. “May I?” he asked, the gesture the universal offer of an embrace. He hadn’t held anyone since before Lugonis had died. It was probably too much. It was already too much, he wasn’t sure if the warmth against his hand was good or absolutely repulsive, or if he just wasn’t used to it enough to know. He took another breath, closed his eyes, and allowed himself to step forward.

Minos caught him, slipping his arms around his chest, holding him by his shoulder blades. Albafica all but collapsed into him, allowed him to hold him. It was almost painfully warm, and the silk of his shirt collar was so soft. He pressed his face into the side of his neck, against his shirt, ignoring and focusing on how surprisingly soft his silver hair was. Minos’ grip was loose, and if he stepped away he was sure the Spectre would let him go. He stayed close. Minos held him gentle, loose, turned his hips one way and then the other, as though rocking him ever so slightly from side to side.

He felt him take a breath, and in that same soft, tenor, melodious voice that he’d woken up to, Minos began to sing. “ _Every night, in my dreams… I see you, I feel you. That is how I know you… Go on._ ”

He could feel his heartbeat just below his own collar, steady, a bit on the quick side, like this was as new for Minos as it was for him. Like it was this overwhelming. He swayed with him, or rather, allowed Minos to sway them both. A hand found his hair and began to run Minos’ fingers through it. It was impossibly soothing, and overwhelming, and he didn’t know if he hated it or loved it. “ _Once more you open the door, and you're here in my heart and- my heart will go on, and on_.”

He’d never heard the song before, not once, and the melody was so different from any music he’d ever heard. But the lyrics… Since he’d woken up in death, Minos had been more respectful of him than anyone he’d ever met. Everything beforehand seemed so far away, right now, right where he was. He’d also said, repeatedly, that he saw no further need to lie to him. What he was singing now, this soothing lullaby that made it so much easier to be held, to feel the touch of another against him, to listen to another heartbeat so close to his own. 

“ _You're here, there's nothing I fear… And I know that my heart will go on. We'll stay forever this way, you are safe in my heart; and my heart will go on, and on._ ”

Somewhere in the chorus, he’d felt his heart give out, and the tears started to run down his cheeks, staining Minos’ silk shirt. Sorrow, grief, joy, hope, under someone else’s sky, that he was sure might be his sky too, one day. Minos kept stroking his hair, singing softly, and his hand was beginning to feel more real, like numbness that was finally going away. Between one moment and the next, he felt his own cosmos rise, to match Minos’, which he could suddenly detect shining a bright, incandescent violet of soothing peace, promising safety for them both if only he stayed, if only they were together.

He wept, for sorrow and for safety, and it felt like a beginning. 


End file.
